The Cardinal Menagerie
by Iloveplotbunnies
Summary: AU. The world is full of people who want to watch it burn and Teresa Lisbon knows this all too well.


**Title: **The Cardinal Menagerie

**Rating: **M

**Disclaimer: **I wanted dark fic, so I came and wrote some. You're welcome that I don't own _The Mentalist_!

**Summary: **AU. The world is full of people who want to watch it burn and Teresa Lisbon knows this all too well.

I sometimes write things that I can't explain and this is one of those times?

* * *

The world is full of people who want to watch it burn and Teresa Lisbon knows this all too well.

::::

She likes to think she picked her team well. She's never cared about Cho's past, about Rigsby's biker father, or about Grace's naivety. And keeping with that pattern, she's never cared that Jane's Red John connection places a target on all of their backs. She hires him, _because _she can see the unwavering good in him.

She hires them all, because she sees the good. She sees it, like Samuel Bosco once saw the good in her and it fills her with pride. She's always been quite fond of what others label, _a lost cause_ and her team is a group of (society-deemed) lost causes.

Jane says it's because she has an overwhelming need to save people from themselves.

She rolls her eyes and sips at her coffee. "I stopped trying to save you from yourself, years ago."

(Of course, that's not entirely true and the grinning bastard knows it too.)

::::

Being a cop is part instinct and part common sense. If something looks bad, feels bad, she's come to understand that calling for backup is her best course of action.

It's why she trusts her team.

She knows they have her back. They know she has theirs. It's why cops have partners, why the CBI branches off into units. Safety in numbers. Safety in pairs. Bosco once told her that leading a team (and picking) right was a matter of life and death.

"After all," he had asked her, on their "last" day of working together within the SFPD. "Who would you trust more to cover your ass? A team of strangers or a team of people, you've handpicked and vetted?"

It's why she always calls her team first.

She trusts their instincts, just as she trusts her own.

_After all_, she thinks, _I did pick them all by hand. _

::::

She's never cared much for what others think about her, mainly because the petty words of others have done nothing to her.

_Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me_.

She's heard she places too much trust into that team of hers and she's heard Jane is an endless liability, to both the CBI and her impressive career. She's heard she's not intelligent enough to head the Red John investigation, and that she's also not without her own branch of naivety when it comes down to it. She's also heard she had no place in running her own team, because she's female.

_It's oddly comforting how many people just want to watch the world burn before their eyes_, she thinks, _because it must mean I'm doing something right. _

::::

Or she's doing something _very _wrong and in turn, the universe has to fix it.

Pro quo something or another.

::::

It turns out that relying on instinct _only _delays the inevitable. It doesn't matter if you've known someone for a few hours or five years, as someone will _eventually _betray you; and there's not a damned thing you can do about it either.

She thinks she picked her team well and she didn't and that's what she gets for relying on mostly instinct and common sense. She ends up blindsided and backed into a corner, unable to run for having misplaced her loyalty and trust.

She just wonders how she could have known.

(_Is anyone safe from Red John_, she ponders after Rigsby turns to Cho and pulls the trigger. She's not the only one who offers second chances; Red John does too. He's given one to Dumar Hardy, Rebecca Anderson, Todd Johnson, etc.)

And when Cho collapses to the ground, she drops to her knees beside him and presses her hands to his chest.

She compresses.

"Why, Wayne?"

She releases.

Blood pools and cools.

He doesn't answer her, but she hears the apology in his silence and in his footsteps; and she sees _I'm sorry_ forming on his lips, as she feels his hand brush the hair away from her neck gently.

She shudders when she feels the needle beneath her skin.

(She's so shocked and disgruntled, she doesn't even think about going after Cho's firearm until she's so far under it doesn't even matter anymore.)

::::

When she was twelve-years-old, her mother rescued a baby cardinal from outside their home. The little bird had a broken wing and her mother bought a medium-sized wire cage with the hopes of nursing it back to full health.

She had always thought the creature was pretty and in turn, she had (secretly) named the bird Coral. Her father had warned her against becoming too attached, but she honestly couldn't stop her interest in the bird with the color plumage of strawberries. She spent her summer days and nights watching over Coral; whispering secrets to her chirping confidante, feeding her nuts and berries from the kitchen and grinning at the silly bird's attempts to fly that when it was time to release Coral back into the wild; she cried.

"No, you can't! She's mine! She's my friend! Her name's Coral and she likes it here!"

Her mother had taken one look at her, a sad smile on her lips, before she had grabbed her hand. "Teresa, she needs to be free. It's wrong to cage a bird, as a caged bird will eventually die." She said nothing. "How would you feel if you were caged, dear?"

"I don't care!"

(Coral didn't survive the night.)

::::

When she finally opens her eyes, she finds herself behind a solid wall of glass and she decides she doesn't like it at all.

::::

For no caged animal survives—

And,

Red John just wants to watch their world burn.


End file.
